Egypt - Migration



In the early 1960s, most of the Greek population emigrated as the result of the government's nationalization measures; nearly all Jews, who formed less than 0.3% of the population in 1966, left the country after the 1967 war with Israel. With the completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970, up to 100,000 Nubian tribesmen were moved from flooded parts of the upper Nile and resettled in the plain downstream. During the 1970s there was significant internal migration from rural to urban areas. During the 1970s and first half of the 1980s, more than 3 million workers took jobs in other countries. In 1992 some 2,850,000 Egyptians were living abroad, including about 1 million in Libya and 850,000 in Saudi Arabia.

The Egyptian government estimates that there are 3–5 million Sudanese refugees, and some have lived in Egypt for over 30 years. In 2000 there were 169,000 migrants living in Egypt. In 2000, the net migration rate was -1.2 migrants per 1,000 population. The government views the immigration level as satisfactory, but the emigration level as too low.

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